From the recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award, the
Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Rea
Award for the Short Story comes a gorgeously rendered, passionate account of a
relationship threatened by secrets, set against the backdrop of national
tragedy.

When Natasha, a talented young artist working as a
congressional aide, meets Michael Faulk, an Episcopalian priest struggling with
his faith, the stars seem to align. Although he is nearly two decades older,
they discover in each other the happy yearning and exhilaration of lovers, and
within months they are engaged. Shortly before their wedding, while Natasha is
vacationing in Jamaica and Faulk is in New York attending the wedding of a
family friend, the terrorist attacks of September 11 shatter the tranquility of
the nation’s summer. Alone in a state of abject terror, cut off from America
and convinced that Faulk is dead, Natasha makes an error in judgment that leads
to a private trauma of her own on the Caribbean shore. A few days later, she
and Faulk are reunited, but the horror of that day and Natasha’s inability to
speak of it inexorably divide their relationship into “before” and “after.”
They move to Memphis and begin their new life together, but their marriage
quickly descends into repression, anxiety, and suspicion.

In prose that is direct, exact, and lyrical, Richard
Bausch plumbs the complexities of public and personal trauma and the courage
with which we learn to face them. Above all, Before, During, After is a love story, offering a penetrating and
exquisite portrait of intimacy, of spiritual and physical longing, and of the
secrets we convince ourselves to keep even as they threaten to destroy us. This
is an unforgettable tour de force from one of America’s most distinguished
storytellers.

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Quotes & Awards

“Elegantly constructed…One of Richard Bausch’s many talents is the
forthright ease with which he delivers his characters—and readers—to
the gravest questions of love, faith, and ultimately God, even as he
nimbly hides the answers in plain sight.”

New York Times Book Review

“Scrupulous observation and straightforward storytelling…As he
empathetically investigates his characters, Bausch uncovers thoughts and
feelings as tangled and troubled as the world around them…Back
stories are traced with Bausch’s customary deftness and delicacy, his
protagonists placed within a carefully drawn web of relationships that
further illuminate their personalities…Bausch has always professed
a Chekhovian credo that quiet attention to the details is more truthful
and revealing than grand gestures. The moving but tentative final scene
keeps faith with that.”

Boston Globe

“Intimate. Just as Sue Miller did in her 9/11 novel, The Lake Shore Limited,
Bausch explores the way private tragedy is distorted and subsumed by
national disaster. And as Roxane Gay did in her recent novel, An Untamed State,
he juxtaposes an individual act of sexual violence against the broader
violence of countries…The story effectively recreates the
frustration of dealing with a victim in deep denial—and it’s a harrowing
reminder of how the reverberations of those explosions traveled through
the American psyche. For all the novel’s lovely description of romance
‘before,’ Bausch is even more insightful when he follows the corrosive
effects of anxiety ‘after.’”

Washington Post

“Sublimely probing what it means to lose trust in one’s self and in
those one loves, the masterful Bausch delicately ponders the
consequences of devastating loss on both a grand and personal scale. A
luscious, sweeping heartbreak of a novel.”

Other Titles by Richard Bausch:

About the Author

Richard
Bausch is the author of numerous novels and short story
collections. He is a recipient of many awards, including the PEN/Malamud Award,
a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, the
Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Dayton
Literary Peace Prize, and the Rea Award for the Short Story. He is currently
professor of English at Chapman University in Orange, California.

About the Narrator

Neil Shah is an Audie Award–nominated narrator and voice-over artist who
has recorded numerous audiobooks and won an AudioFile Earphones Award. His reading include I Am an Executioner by
Rajesh Parameswaran, The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais, and Stringer: A Reporter’s Journey in the Congo
by Anjan Sundaram. He is a classically trained
actor with an MFA from the Old Globe / University of San Diego program and has
appeared on off-Broadway and regional stages, as well as in film and
television.

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